Raoul Auernheimer: Aphorismen und Gedichte ed. by Donald G. Daviau (review)

This volume of aphorisms and poems complements the concurrent publication of Donald Davi’s Raoul Auernheimer: Reports on Austrian Writers in 1945 and Lectures in American Exileand strengthens the editor’s long- held opinion that Auernheimer deserves greater attention within the field of Austrian arts and letters. As a member of the Jung-Wiengroup close to Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Zweig, and others, Auernheimer subsequently shared the fate of many German and Austrian exiled artists and intellectuals during the Nazi period. The lasting impression this collection leaves on the reader is, on the one hand, that of a writer deeply rooted in the linguistic, literary, and cultural heritage of Vienna during the first third of the twentieth century. On the other, it is the palpable sense of loss caused by the physical isolation and separation from his homeland during the last decade of his life in New York and California (1938–48), despite Auernheimer’s decision to become a naturalized American citizen and to work with the government in his reports on Austrian writers while in the United States.

A novelist, playwright, poet, aphorist, historian, and theater critic, Auernheimer reveals himself as a “Wiener Kind” (2) most clearly in the aphorisms he wrote over the course of his lifetime. Daviau received access to the published materials from Auernheimer’s literary estate through his widow in 1966. At the time of his death, Auernheimer was planning a volume “In Worten oder was ich sagen wollte,” to be published by Ullstein in Vienna. Daviau writes that this material, a fragment of his literary estate, is close to Auernheimer’s heart as an “expression of everything that moved and reflected his life in exile.” Anxious to be remembered in his homeland, Auernheimer ultimately desired to return there but failed to realize that wish. Drawing on his extensive familiarity with Auernheimer, Daviau maintains that the author has been unjustly neglected despite his considerable contributions as feuilletonist and theater critic for the Neue Freie Presseas well as a writer of comedies, novels, and essays. In his preface, Daviau concludes that the author represented the best of the spirit of the Viennese fin-de-siècleand, like Zweig and Schnitzler, held to the Viennese lifestyle as “ein wahrer Archivist des Lebens der ‘Traumwelt Wien’” (3).

Crafted much in the style of those by Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Bahr, Kraus, and others, Auernheimer’s aphorisms are a welcome addition to the body of examples of this popular vehicle of expression in Vienna around the turn of the century. In typical aphoristic fashion, an underlying critical tone of satire and irony lies at their core. In Auernheimer’s own words, “Es gibt allerkleinste geistige Lebewesen, die sich im Kopf, im Herzen und in der Schreibtischlade eines Schriftstellers mit den Jahren in großen Mengen anzusammeln pflegen: man nennt sie Aphorismen” (75). The author’s linguistic talent, interests, thoughts, and character are on display in the aphorisms he wrote over the course of his lifetime. Reflecting iconic themes from the Viennese fin-de-siècle, the aphorisms are grouped in categories dealing with women, love, marriage, character, ethics, society, and literature, among others. They attest to Auernheimer’s beliefs that literature should entertain as well as enlighten and also that the act of writing embodies an act of self-revelation (“Ein Schriftsteller ist ein Mensch, der sich selber schreibt,” 72).

In contrast to the more philosophical, objective, and critically detached tone of the aphorisms, the poems in large part reveal more about the personal side of Auernheimer’s life in exile. They express the underlying pain and suffering of separation he experienced in his later years as he struggled with the process of adjusting fully to life in the United States. Auernheimer’s ambivalence toward his new homeland, its culture and virtues, despite his work for the government and that conducted on behalf of other emigré writers, thinly veils the deeper pain of separation from Austria and Europe he strongly felt. Of historical rather...